Conservative lawmakers in over a dozen states are pushing a bill that would force consumers to pay a ransom to access pornography.

The Human Trafficking Prevention Act, if passed, would apply a pornography filter to any device, from laptops to cellphones to routers, that connects to the internet—and would levy a $20 tax to remove it from each one. The bill mandates all manufacturers of internet-connected devices maintain separate, 24-7 call centers to make sure obscene material is appropriately labeled.

Confusingly, this bill has the exact same name as a 2014 bill which seems intended to actually help fight human trafficking.

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Register or Login (or rather, these bills, since multiple states have proposed their own versions) is not like that bill in the same way that Circus Balls Cereal is not like Trix. It's an cheap imitation, it's not fooling anyone, and it's totally not worth saving 50¢ at checkout.

Instead of fighting human trafficking, bills like You are not allowed to view links.
Register or Login are intended to fight "the growing epidemic of dissemination of pornographic images and the resulting demand for human trafficking" - there are a hell of a lot of assumptions here that are just plain wrong.

First off, calling it an "epidemic" is a tad hyperbolic. If no one actually has to go to the hospital except one guy who unwisely tried a 36-hour marathon, calling it an epidemic is a bit misleading. Second, thanks for using "dissemination" in that sentence. The jokes practically write themselves. Third, the resulting demand for human trafficking?? I don't what you guys think is going on, but I'm reasonably sure that looking at some NSFW artwork doesn't result in anyone getting abducted. I'm pretty sure the only people getting hurt by this are the artist's wrist and possibly other people's wrists.

And even if these bills weren't absolutely mental (not to mention at odds with the Republican portrayal of themselves as against government regulation and pro individual freedom) enforcing this sort of jackbooted moral guardianship (at taxpayer expense) could be very hard difficult to implement.

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Williams said 13 other states including South Carolina are also currently looking at bills to block porn access on devices sold in-state. The problem is how to accomplish that. Either an arrangement would have to be struck with electronics companies to implement hardware or software to block explicit web content or it would have to be done by someone else further along the consumer chain. Williams said that he's aware of the challenges of implementing a statewide block on content that couldn't be circumvented by getting a VPN, proxy, or a computer shipped from another state.

Apparently, this block would not only be a headache for manufacturers and consumers, it'd be trivially easy to break. Aggravating, ineffectual, and kinda authoritarian - just like the current state of the Republican Party. Have fun standing up for Jeezus, tilting at whatever windmill is your villain today. Just don't be surprised when you guys have to pack your bags in 2-4 years.

Hahaha ... the worst porn of all is political ideology. Implicit fear porn and snuff porn. We need the barbarian armies to come and cut off the male gonads of the male puritans, so they can forget having normal sex, and thus be sinless ... bwahaha ... and they can be made useful as servants in our harems ;-)

On another planet, Bill Gates has trademarked "e" ... everyone using "e" will have to pay him a dollar, each time they use it (that sentence just cost me $13).

conservatives were always good at mental masterbation, but they don't ever call it that....

human traffickin is mostly to do with forcing underage girls into prostitution by holding some kind of threat over their heads. I guess thats a little bit of hillbilly logic to connect porn with trafficking. Or maybe somebody just got mad about all those porn videos slowin down their internet connection.

DISH, Direct, etc., provide plenty of softcore porn. And the underground will find ways around this. I know folks who would pay $40 to avoid giving the misadministration $20.

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We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the young for a long long time."PZ Myers